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NHL coaching carousel much ado about perception: Cox

It will be entertaining because John Tortorella in Vancouver will be a ticking time bomb akin to say, oh, the hiring of Bobby Valentine to manage the Red Sox.

Former Rangers coach John Tortorella arrives at the Vancouver airport on Friday. Media reports are suggesting he will be named coach of the Vancouver Canucks. (DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Or, perhaps this will be the coaching hire that bedevils the general consensus. You know, like how everyone thought Darryl Sutter was the worst possible person to replace Terry Murray in Los Angeles.

Until Sutter won the Stanley Cup.

Here’s what you need to know most about the reports than have Tortorella heading west.

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First, he can be genial and friendly but chooses to be combative even when totally unnecessary. He has no clue how media works but thinks he does. He likes to make himself feel bigger by making others feel small, which sounds a lot like Ron Wilson in Toronto and makes you think The John Tortorella Show will have the same kind of ultimate result in Vancouver.

Second, Tortorella has a Stanley Cup ring and lots of experience, but none of that really matters unless the Canucks (hello, Mike Gillis) are able to assemble a lot more horsepower than last season.

The fact that the Canucks and New York Rangers essentially swapped coaches — Alain Vigneault to Broadway, Tortorella to B.C. — tells you all you really need to know about the modern NHL coach.

There’s not much difference between them, and supply outstrips demand.

For the most part, they coach about the same way in a league in which offence and imagination is crushed at the altar of parity and keeping every games close.

What really decides the level of success of individual coaches is the players they have at their disposal.

Most specifically, the goalie they have at their disposal.

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The fact that both Claude Julien and Joel Quenneville likely would have been fired by the Bruins and Blackhawks, respectively, had their team fallen early in the post-season tells you the state of NHL coaching these days.

Would they have been fired for being poor coaches? Nope. They would have lost their jobs because their players underperformed in the post-season.

Sutter, for his part, didn’t become a reborn genius in California. He was the same coach, but Jonathan Quick became the best goalie on the planet.

It’s about the players. The rest is largely chatter.

Now, there are bad fits. Bobby V sits at the top of that list. There will be those who will state with authority that Randy Carlyle demonstrated he was a much better coach for the Leafs than Wilson, who made zero friends during his tenure.

And maybe all that’s true.

But Carlyle also had a healthy James Reimer and a shortened 48-game season, and he had some young players like Nazem Kadri who were finally ready to contribute. You can argue that Carlyle gave the Leafs a stronger team personality, which is true, but you also have to acknowledge that Wilson was forced to deal with nearly constant roster change as coach of the Leafs.

The bottom line is nobody really knows whether Tortorella will be better than Vigneault in Vancouver, or Vigneault better than Tortorella in New York. Lindy Ruff might be a better answer to the issues in Dallas than was Glen Gulutzan, and perhaps Dallas Eakins’ inexperience won’t be the same liability it was for Ralph Krueger.

Are all coaches created equal? No, but the fact that examples of hockey coaches winning a championship in one place and then doing it again in another are so rare suggests coaching success is situational, and based more on player talent than hockey IQ.

Was Scotty Bowman not as smart in Buffalo as he was in Montreal and Detroit? Doubt it.

As far as Tortorella goes, the Canucks job, let’s face it, isn’t necessarily an appealing position at the moment, at least not for the long term.

The team’s best players are mostly in their 30s, possibly past their prime. There’s little in the pipeline, the result of moves like spending a second- round pick on Derek Roy. There are goalie issues. There are some messy contracts, and Vancouver is just as tough a media market as Toronto or Montreal, maybe even tougher in some ways.

Finally, the Canucks won’t get to pile up the points in the weak Northwest Division anymore. They’re now moving through realignment to a new group in which they have to regularly deal with the three tough California teams.

So Tortorella has his hands full, but expectations are that the Canucks will compete for the Cup now. No five-year plan here.

On Friday, 3,000 respondents to a Vancouver Sun online poll were basically split down the middle on Tortorella. Some of the media reception has already been downright hostile.

Depending on how you define entertainment, yes, this could be exceptionally entertaining.

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